Snapchat is suffering a backlash in India with the hashtag #BoycottSnapchat trending in protest against allegations that CEO Evan Spiegel labelled India and Spain too impoverished to use the messaging app.

Snapchat, which has four million users in India, has also seen its star rating drop drastically in recent days from five to one star in the country's Apple App Store, with users installing the image-sharing social platform, rating it badly, then deleting it.

The backlash began earlier in the week when Variety published a story containing details of a lawsuit in which Spiegel allegedly said “This app is only for rich people.I don’t want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain.”

Former employee Anthony Pompliano claims the CEO made the comments at a meeting in 2015.

I don't understand why people are getting so upset about it. India is a pretty poor country, their economy is growing, but they're still poor. If you're making a website would you be happier with US/Western European traffic or Indian traffic?

That is an unprofessional comment by the CEO (or whoever made it), which wasn't meant for the public obviously.

While the marketing aspect can be defended to an extent, although India is one of the most booming markets and i'd not classify Spain as a poor country. The damage is more clear for me, what an opinion like this can cause, when it makes its way to the public.

I clearly remember the Abercrombie & Fitch scandal and the backlash it caused, when their CEO said that their clothes are for cool kids, thin and beautiful people and not for fat people. He was later removed and the brand took a serious hit, never truly recovered. In 2016 they became the most hated retailer in US history, although the scandal happened in 2013 after a 2006 interview got reheated.

Spain isn't a poor country the most rich soccer teams from the world are in Spain, Barcelona and Real Madrid are worth almost 1 billion. To buy or to rent a house in cities like Madrid or Barcelona you need to have some money potential on your pockets. And not the last point of view is Ibiza, common man, who don't want to go to Ibiza at least one in a life time?

Spain isn't a poor country the most rich soccer teams from the world are in Spain, Barcelona and Real Madrid are worth almost 1 billion. To buy or to rent a house in cities like Madrid or Barcelona you need to have some money potential on your pockets. And not the last point of view is Ibiza, common man, who don't want to go to Ibiza at least one in a life time?

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Your point is similarly stupid.

You can't talk about some rich people and make out like the whole country is like that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_list_of_Indian_billionaires

There are plenty of Indian billionaires, but the average wage is $4/day. They aren't all rich...

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